—Botulism is a rare disease and recurrent botulism even more rare. However, in California, recurrent wound botulism among injection drug users has been on the rise and makes up three-quarters of reported cases in the United States.
A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and...

A study by University of Washington psychologists shows some people continue to drink heavily because of perceived positive effects, despite experiencing negative effects such as hangovers, fights and regrettable sexual situations.
According to participants in the study, boosts of courage,...

A new national study shows that from 2005 to 2009 (the most recent year with available figures) there was a 49-percent increase in emergency department visits for drug related suicide attempts by women aged 50 and older -- from 11,235 visits in 2005 to 16,757 in 2009.

The popular, formerly caffeinated, fruity alcoholic beverage, Four Loko, has been blamed for a spike in alcohol-related hospitalizations, especially throughout college campuses.
Initially, caffeine was deemed the culprit and the Food and Drug Administration ordered all traces of caffeine to be removed from Four Loko and all other similar beverages. However, according to an upcoming evaluation in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, caffeine might not be the primary cause of the spike in hospitalizations.
“Four Loko didn’t have the extraordinary intoxicating effect...

The number of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England has exceeded one million in a year for the first time, a report has found.
Figures compiled by the NHS Information Centre for the year 2009-2010 revealed 1,057,000 hospital visits in relation to alcohol, a 12% increase on the previous year and more than double the amount recorded in 2002-2003.
The statistics, which cover the period of April 2009 to the end of March 2010, were published today in the NHS IC’s annual report, Statistics on Alcohol: England 2011.
A breakdown of the figures showed that 63% of the hospital admissions were for men and found that there were higher...

The death of a man this week in East Alton potentially is the 22nd fatal heroin overdose of 2011, a number four times greater than what Madison County saw just four years ago, the coroner said Tuesday.
“In 2008, we had five cases; in 2009, seven; in 2010, 18,” Coroner Stephen Nonn said. “There is definitely a problem here. We’re not even halfway through the year.”
An autopsy was conducted Tuesday on Jessie S. Outhouse, 29, who died at his home in the 200 block of Westwood Place in East Alton; his body was found Monday. Results of the toxicology tests will not be known for several weeks, but if they bear out, the...

Case studies indicate the recreational use of synthetic cannabis may lead to psychosis that can last for days or months in some cases, according to a study at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting in Hawaii.
Researchers at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego followed ten patients hospitalized for psychosis apparently induced by the use of synthetic cannabis, commonly known as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn.” These are plant material coated with varying combinations of synthetic cannabinoids, which act on the body in a similar way to chemicals found in cannabis....

A new system that ranks drugs on the basis of harm caused to both the user and others places. The scale, developed by drug experts led by Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London, is published online in The Lancet.
Drugs including alcohol and tobacco products are a major cause of harms to individuals and society. To provide better guidance to policy makers in health, policing, and social care, the harms that drugs cause need to be properly assessed. This task is not easy because of the wide range of ways in which drugs can cause harm, the researchers say.
When Professor Nutt and colleagues attempted this assessment previously in...

In the United States, the blood-alcohol limit may be 0.08 percent, but no amount of alcohol seems to be safe for driving, according to a University of California, San Diego sociologist. A study led by David Phillips and published in the journal Addiction finds that blood-alcohol levels well below the U.S. legal limit are associated with incapacitating injury and death.
Phillips, with coauthor Kimberly M. Brewer, also of UC San Diego, examined official data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). This dataset includes information on all persons in the U.S. who were involved in fatal car accidents — 1,495,667 people in the...

Hospital emergency department visits involving underage drinking double for males during the Fourth of July holiday weekend according to a new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The study revealed that during the holiday weekend of July 3-5, 2009, there was a daily average of 942 emergency department visits related to alcohol use by people under the age of 21. Two thirds of these visits (622) were by males and 304 visits were by females. Although the number of emergency department visits for young females remained steady throughout the month including the July 4th weekend, the number of visits...